The Salt and the Light
by HyperSpooches58
Summary: "You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? . . . You are the light of the world—like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see." Updated every Wednesday or Friday.
1. PreveiwHidden Message

_This just in._

_Student of the local Skool_

_Dib Membr__**a**__ne _

_has gone missing._

_Students say fo__**l**__lowing the night he vani__**s**__hed from his tw__**o**__-story house_

_on an e__**a**__rly September mor__**n**__ing_

_he was acting even m__**o**__re _

_and I quo__**t**__e,_

_"Weirder t__**h**__an usual."_

_Som__**e**__ say that he had been_

_excessively pu**r**suing_

_a __**student**__ named __**Z**__im_

_cla__**i**__ming_

_said student_

_to have been an alien,_

_even __**m**__ore than usual_

_going as far as following him to __**h**__is own household._

_Dib w__**a**__s seen by some drivers _

_running down the s_

_**s**__treet screamin__**g**__ about_

_"Contr__**o**__l."_

_amo__**n**__gst all the_

_"usual UFO gibberish h__**e**__ blurts about."_

_"My poor __**m**__issing insane son."_

_was the f__**i**__rst words we heard from _

_deva__**s**__tated father _

_and _

_extraordinary __**s**__cientist,_

_Professor Membrane _

_on his son's d__**i**__sappeara__**n**__ce._

_"Whatever, he was annoyin__**g**__ anyways and so __**a**__re you, go away.",_

_his little sister'__**s**__,_

_Gaz Membrane comments,_

_she then proceeded to thro__**w**__ an empty Poop Co__**l**__a can at one of my reporters and wa__**l**__k away._

_"I'm okay__** but**__ it still hurt."_

_One last thing _

_we found written in bold letters_

_along with several other questionable statements_

_were the words_

_**Who cares?**_

_This has been WZTY-TV_

_We will keep you updated_

_as more clues_

_are discovered._

**End Note: **A further story is hidden within the sentences. See if you can crack the code.


	2. A Weekend Before Disappearance

**Author's Note:**

Here's the very first chapter. Hopefully you saw the message in the preview I gave you. Enjoy.

~~~~!

_The Last Weekend Before Disappearance_

_. . ._

"Come back here with my camera you green ape!" Dib commanded as he endlessly chased Zim through several angry neighbor's yards, he had just narrowly avoided a weed-whacker that was being drowsily guided by an old man with a hangover, possibly... probably since the man just hiccuped a 'sorry' and returned to closing his eyes.

However, since Zim was a little lighter thanks to his lack of lungs and gain of an air-supplying PAK he quickly dashed at least one fourth's of a mile ahead of the "nearly-dying" teenager in the back of him. He huffed a bit as he jogged down the cold sidewalk, camera dangling and bouncing around on his chest held by a strong strap of the same material seat-belts were made out of. Zim hated to admit it, but the new addition helped a lot during their chases.

Soon the two boys were in hot pursuit, waving in and out of traffic if traffic counts for three to five cars every other couple of minutes.

_Screeeeech!_

"You idiot!" Dib cried out in shock and anger to both the careless alien in front of him and the even more careless driver behind the wheel of a rickety Ousi Ferva '17 he couldn't help but notice that he didnt have his seat belt on and there was no excuse for the man this time since it was an older car it had seat belts built into it. Normally people wouldn't really care for this sort of thing but Dib saw it as a huge health hazard, every other day he would see in the headlines of a newspaper that people were dying from car crashes left and right they could be a little more focused and less carel-

"!" Zim couldn't catch the little scream that quickly built up in his throat as he was launched to the side by an incoming car that he had misjudged slightly when it came to distance.

"Zim!" Dib shouted involuntarily, "If you get that camera run over I'm going to personally gut you!" Okay. Maybe voluntarily after all.

Zim groaned as he quickly got to his feet and continued to dash on, obviously very determined to get away from Dib.

He couldn't stand loosing anything, but Dib made sure that that happened almost everyday now. NOT this time Dib, no way.

Dib stared in shock as he watched the Irken jump to his feet literally and keep running, had he or had he not just seen that bug squished by a car?!

He turned to the driver as if to ask 'did you see that too?' and the driver's expression was all he needed to know that that had indeed just happened.

_BEEP!_

A horn reminded him and the man in the white Zsadeon that they were holding up a lot of traffic and Dib un-paused his part in the chase having caught his breath, and ran after Zim and faster speeds taking in deep, icy-cold breaths every time he opened his mouth from the rushing air as he blazed through parking lots after his arch nemesis.

"This cant be possible." Zim said as he looked in the back of him to see the fast-approaching figure wrapped in black, he was indeed getting closer to him every time he turned his head. On the fifth time Zim decided he had to think fast and now before he was caught by the human.

His eyes connected with a run-down street he saw on his right, taking the quickest look back to see if the coast was clear he swiftly turned and dove down the street at top speeds allowing the hard camera to bounce mercilessly against his chest knocking almost all wind out of him as he stopped halfway down the road. He peered back at the other end and saw no sign of the human.

Nope. No-one.

He let out an exhausted sigh of relief and bent his knees wearily allowing himself to go slack for a moment of triumph. But that moment as all moments didnt last long and he was reminded that he had a slim chance of finding his way back to his base.

"Stupid human." he snarled out the overused term he gave everyone almost everyday in disgust, however it was only positioned to fit one human perfectly, the Dib and it was one-hundred-and ten-percent directed to him right now.

Zim decided he would just keep walking down the road and it might take him somewhere familiar, he had actually been to many places out of the zone of his base thanks to Gir and well, Dib too.

Whether it was a trip down to the super-market to get get more snacks for Gir or a run around the park to get away from Dib's newest device of finding out more about him, Zim had visited, frequented, and knew many places in the small city he had chose to reside in for the time being before he conquered it and smashed it up into little pieces, and burned it, and OH YES... and then mushed them some more and took away all their meats of evil and WA-TER... oh the horrible things that stuff did to him! And bologna! Oh wait-wasn't bologna meat? It sure didnt look like it at times. In fact it looked like-

"AAAH!" Zim was rammed down by Dib as the teenager silently watched and timed his turn to pounce on his distracted target, he got him at the exact right time while the invader was just walking aimlessly around looking lost and bored. Now, here he was, on top of the struggling Irken, pinning him down on his legs and bringing his arms back towards him.

Zim shouted at him to get off, ear-shattering loudly, as Dib brought him to his knees, his wrists were tightly grasped in Dib's single hand as he reached out a second towards Zim.

Zim shrieked and struggled harder knowing what Dib was planning to do, take off his disguise and expose him. He was, in fact, only a literal road's away from doing just that.

The teenager's ears rung at the constant noise coming from Zim's mouth and he cupped his hand over the invader's mouth, silencing him to confused and flustered, 'MMF?!'s.

He smirked in slight victory, "I'm not going to do what you think I am, I just want my camera back." his voice sounded demanding in a... kid-like way.

The Irken shook his head frantically under Dib's grasp, mumbling something about, 'never'.

Dib glared and foolishly snapped his hand off of Zim's wrists to grab his camera himself. At that moment Zim's instincts kicked in and he jumped to his feet turned around and shoved Dib back in the same time it took for Dib to even release his grip on him.

Dib tumbled backwards, confused and blinked at Zim, surprised that he had done that so _fast_.

He would have to note that later.

"NYAH!" he cried out as one of Zim's small fists swiped by his face, startling him out of his note-taking thoughts.

"I will make you wish you never even took these pictures in the first place you worm!" Zim shouted raising the camera up into the air as high as he possibly could.

The human boy standing in front of him narrowed his eyes to slits as he muttered, "That's my last camera Zim..."

Zim chuckled darkly at this, "So it is? And what would happen, if perhaps, someone-..droppedit!" the camera fell down a couple of terrifying inches before falling perfectly into Zim's outstretched hand below it.

Dib's breath caught in his throat, "I mean it Zim, if you drop that I will make sure you pay for it."

"And how do you intend on doing that?" Zim sneered, dangling the camera by it's strap on a single finger.

Dib watched as it swayed dangerously on the tip of the alien's finger and glared, "I will some way! Now just give it to me and I'll delete the pictures!"

Zim stopped and held the camera, cocking a non-existent eyebrow, "You will?"

Dib couldn't believe his luck, then promptly questioned Zim's intelligence before nodding his head and answering, "Yeah! I swear!" he impatiently held out his hand for the camera.

Zim looked un-easily at Dib's hand and then at the camera, "Zim is going to watch you delete the photographs, you have no choice." before shoving the beloved device into Dib's hands.

Dib quickly hugged it to his chest and held it up in front of him for any damages, nothing except for a few of what he guessed were sweat marks.

Disgusting alien hand sweat... ewww. But also very beneficial for some possible DNA samples... right?

Zim retrieved the camera back and promptly went over the screen with his magenta shirt wiping off the sweat.

Well. There goes his DNA samples. _Of course. _

Dib looked at Zim oddly as he was handed back his camera.

"Zim thought you wouldn't appreciate his "germs" on your precious picture-taking device." he explained in the most careless way possible.

Dib nodded and stared at the black screen for the longest of time before Zim interrupted the silence.

"Hello?! I gave you your camera back now erase the photos!" Zim growled at him pointing at the silver thing in the boy's hands.

"What? Oh, yeah." Dib snapped out of his thoughts and turned on the camera the first thing he saw was a picture of Zim's antennae, slightly blurry but still good enough a picture to tell what they were.

Zim narrowed one of his eyes at Dib silently judging him, he just received a shrug in return and a press of a red button erased the picture from his sight.

The next picture popped up and it was of... Zim's... boot?

This time the alien HAD to say something, "You are very desperate aren't you human?"

"Shut-up! You move fast, okay!" Dib defended quickly as he trashed that picture.

Five pictures of Zim's shirt, head, eyes, and hand later all the pictures were mostly deleted except for one.

"Well, I think that's it, unless you like to sight-see." Dib said to Zim finally.

Zim shook his head and pointed to the counter in the upper right corner of the screen, "It says you still have one new picture."

Dib cocked an eyebrow at that, "The one you just saw was the very last picture I got to take of you before you took my camera."

"YOU'RE LYING!"

"No! I'm not! I swear! But let's look at it anyways to be sure." Dib clicked the next button and a bone-chilling sight appeared. It was a picture of an old building. It's walls were cracked, the paint was chipped, the two large glass doors were stained with who knows what, and very bright lighting was coming from inside. The picture was taken in such an odd angle that it had appeared even more horrifying than Dib and Zim first thought.

But neither boys had any intention of letting the other know that.

"Why would you take a picture of a stupid old building, Dib-stink?" Zim asked sounding harsh and bored.

Dib pointed an accusatory finger at the invader, "I didnt take it. You did! You're the one who stole the camera from me after that last picture!"

Zim shook his head, disapprovingly, "Zim did not take such an odd picture! The Dib only takes odd pictures!"

"I take observation pictures, thank you very much! And I told you that the very last picture you saw before this was right before you stole this from me!" Dib defended folding his arms and glaring heatedly at the Irken.

"Boys. Boys. No harm done here. Maybe it was just an accident." a cool, crisp, voice said from behind them.

Zim and Dib jumped around to be met by a tall figure with bright blue eyes and grayish-white wind-swept hair with caramel colored tanned skin, it was obvious this person was a man because of his suit-like attire and deep voice.

"Who are you?" Zim spoke first, scanning the human with his eyes dis-trustingly.

"Oh, just your neighborhood business man going on break watching two wonderful friends fight." he peered down at them, blue eyes looking at them both accusingly.

"Friends? Oh no, sir, you've got it all wrong, he is most definitely and surely will never be my friend... ever." Dib said for good measure.

"Ah, that's what all fighting friends say young boy but I can see it in both of your eyes that you two want to make-up." he waved a finger at Dib as if to shush him, he then promptly got on a knee before them to gain better eye-contact.

"Then you must be blind, because I would never make allies with this filthy filth beast." Zim scoffed glaring at the man.

"In fact I am blind, Zim." he turned to meet glassy eyes with the young invader.

Zim back-tracked, seeing this as a sort of impassible insult and clammed up.

Dib however covered up for Zim's rudeness, "Sorry, sir, he didn't know."

"Most don't." the man laughed then looked at them both, "I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Get's you kids EVERY-time!"

Neither the Irken nor the human boy laughed, until the laughing came to a point where the man was very loud when they took the que to just laugh with him and maybe he would stop.

"Heh. Heh. Yeah. Heh." Dib chuckled awkwardly, staring at the man strangely.

Zim did the same, except more into it, having the greatest need to get away from this bizarre man as soon as possible.

"Yes, well, I best be going. Have fun, kids, and try to be nice to each other." the man got up and looked down at them.

Zim felt intimidated by the human's huge height and drowned out whatever he was saying to Dib his head lowered towards the ground, supposedly giving him the image of looking bored.

He saw out of the corner of his eye, the man retreating, back turned to them but confidently straight and strain-free.

"Zim! Are you listening to me?!" Dib shouted into his face.

"Ah-AH!" Zim stepped back in surprise.

"What was _that?_.._!_" Dib questioned staring at Zim oddly after the Irken made that weird noise of fright.

"Hrm?" Zim asked, almost getting lost in his own fake expression of boredom, "I mean-WHAT?!"

"Was that really necessary?" Dib asked, rubbing his pounding ear.

"Yes." Zim answered back plainly.

Dib rolled his eyes then went straight back into panic mode, "HE KNEW OUR NAMES, ZIM!"

"Your name is not Zim... Zim is Zim." the Irken narrowed his eyes at Dib.

"What?" Dib shook his head quickly, "Nevermind. He knew our names!"

"Who did?" Zim asked stupidly.

"THE MAN! ZIM! THE MAN WE WERE JUST TALKING TO NOT EVEN TWO MINUTES AGO!" Dib shouted furious at Zim's sudden complete stupidity,... or was it laziness... or boredom, or did he just not care that a stranger walked up to them addressing them _without even haven seen them before!_

He didnt wait for Zim to respond, "Dont you think that's strange?"

Three. Two. One. Light bulb.

"How did he know that?! Is he after us?! HE'S A SECRET FBI AGENT AFTER MY GUTS!" Zim shouted with a sudden burst of frenzy in alarm.

"Zim, do you even know who the FBI are?" Dib stared back annoyingly at him.

"YES! THEY DO HORRIBLE THINGS TO ME..." Zim's lavender contacts were in cat-like slits by now.

"I wish, but no they actually are a good-" Dib was cut off by Zim's continuing rant, not only did it iritate him further but it also sent a weird chill down his spine.

"-IF I GET CAUGHT! HAHA! _THEN _AND ONLY _THEN _WILL I ESCAPE THEIR HORRIBLE GRASPS OF-"

"Zim."

"HORRIBLE ICKY HUMAN-Y-NESS!-"

"Zim.."

"HORRIBLE!"

"Zim..."

"HUMANS!"

". . ."

Dib just watched both mildly amused and highly annoyed waiting for Zim to finally stop.

When he did he only said, "You've been watching way too much Doctor Who."

**End Note:**

What do you think about that first chapter? Tell me in reviews! Thanks for reading and I have a lot planned for this story.


	3. A Night Before Disappearance

_A Night Before Disappearance_

Zim had acted oddly about what had happened that weekend. Dib actually heard a pinch of fear in his voice and Zim was never scared unless if it were Halloween, or meat, or soda. Beside the point, Zim wasn't afraid of _humans_. Well that wasn't right either. Zim wasn't necessarily scared of humans in general. Okay, let's try this again. Zim was afraid of humans _with scalpels_. Any alien really, would be scared of the same thing. Even some humans were afraid to go under the knife. The thing was that Zim knew he was going to be awake through the whole thing if it did happen. They would take out all his organs painfully from his body. Humans don't care what they do to other things that can't speak for themselves. Or if the thing did talk, was green, and had antennae about a foot long. The fact was Zim was truly terrified of this human. Dib couldn't guess why. He just seemed like a normal old guy who somehow knew their name. Maybe he was a teacher at their Skool. The encounter hadn't bothered him much but had disturbed Zim to the maximum. He was questioning whether or not to just abort the mission. Of course he would never do that. He refused to give up, even if a human knew his name and the Dib's name. He wasn't that surprised that he knew Dib's name, since the boy was known city-wide for his insanity. The truth was, and Zim knew this, he wasn't crazy. What Dib didn't know was that Zim could see beyond. He saw what Dib saw but would never let him know that. The human would pester him with his stupid panoramic studies or something else. Plus, it was funny to see him be called crazy by everyone especially after all the trouble he gets him into. He had to admit having the boy around made his mission even more exciting but in an annoying way. If it weren't for the surprisingly smart child he would have conquered the humans by now. The only person standing in front of the finish line was Dib and he was big blockade.

Zim closed his eyes and pinched the space between his eyes, moaning in displeasure. He was thinking of ways to find the human man again. He had to see him once more or his questions would never be answered. Unless… unless, he raised his head and turned to his computer.

Unless he searched him up by physical appearance.

"Computer." Zim called upward.

"Yes?" Computer asked, cooperatively for once.

"Take a physical search on the following human. He's tall, about 5 feet or more, he's tan, blue eyes, and white hair that looks like someone stuck him in a hurricane. He wears a suit." Zim recalled the man's image in his mind.

"Not enough data to create a profile." Computer warned.

Zim banged his fist on the desk and thought, what else about the man could he remember. Then he came up with an idea.

"Do you take audio clips?" Zim asked.

"Yes."

He smirked and opened up his PAK, a small recorder shaped machine popped out and a playback of dialogue poured out. He backed up and came to the part where they were talking about the picture. Suddenly the voice of the man came up. Zim looked up at the screen and read the constant feed of information on him.

"Sandy Avarfeild; a human man of the age 37 he works at the Universal Institution of The Trouble-Minded. A building somewhere out in… Cali-for-neeya? What is this building, Computer?" Zim asked.

"Classified."

"What do you mean-. Forget it, what type of service does this building offer?" he tried another question.

"Classified."

"Can you tell me anything other than the location?" Zim snarled getting frustrated.

"Yes, the location is a lie. Their real location is-."

"Let me guess; classified." Zim mumbled.

"Yes, master." Computer answered back as if he nodded.

Zim sat back in his chair and swiveled around to face the screen again, "Whatever this man is, and Zim has a bad feeling about his "Institution". Zim thinks it would be best if he kept an eye on this human. He may be even smarter than Dib."

Great, another obstacle.

"Why must so many pestering humans disrupt my plans to rule over the Earth? Why can't they just accept their fate and do nothing." Zim walked away from his computer and back upstairs to go and confront Dib. This was a serious matter and Dib had the perfect equipment to manipulate. He marched down the street to his enemy's house and climbed up to his window using his PAK-legs. He tapped on the screen and instantly it shattered. Dib jerked up from his bed and placed on his glasses scared out of his wits. When he saw it was Zim he groaned and snapped on the light.

"What do you want?" he glared at Zim and crossed his arms, combing back his scythe into place.

"Look up Sandy Avarfeild." Zim pushed the boy out of his bed and he landed on the ground near his chair.

"Why? What is up with you lately, you've been so jumpy. This better not be about that guy we saw earlier this weekend." Dib climbed into his chair and turned on his laptop.

"Just do it!" Zim shouted angrily.

"SHUSH. Gaz is sleeping. You want to wake her up, be my guest, go get your eyeballs ripped out and shoved down your throat." Dib hushed him and typed in the name of the person Zim asked him to look up.

The picture came up and Dib rolled his eyes, "You looked him up?" he said not even facing Zim but clearly had a voice of displeasure, "What do you want to know."

"I want to know more about the Institution he works at." Zim paced the room, "All I know is the name, the rest my computer said was classified."

"Then how do you think I'm going to be able to access the information?!" Dib turned at narrowed his eyes even more at the Irken sitting on his bed.

"You're always bragging about how much better your equipment is than mine so show me how "great" it is." Zim smirked. He turned an awkward moment to a chance to show up Dib.

Dib turned back to the screen and typed in the name of the building. A full page and several other ones popped up, "Whoa! What did you do?!"

Zim pushed him off the chair and sat down in it, he began reading the information out loud, "The Universal Institution of the Trouble-Minded was founded by Tobias C. Mack. It was created to house all trouble-minded intelligent life under one roof." He looked down at Dib who was asleep again on the floor. He kicked him in the stomach, "What does trouble-minded mean?"

Dib groaned and clutched his stomach; he coughed, unable to say any words. Zim was about to kick him again when he screamed at him, "Wait a second!"

Zim placed his foot back under the chair and stared down at Dib, waiting for an answer. Finally he spoke, "Trouble-minded means crazy, or depressed, or manic, stuff like that."

"Zim is not crazy!" Zim screamed at the top of his lungs as if the man were standing right in front of him.

Dib shushed him again and backed up against the foot of his bed, watching Zim type away on his laptop.

"What are you looking for now, moron?" Dib wondered.

"The location of this Institution." Zim answered and shouted an aha when he found it. Dib didn't even try to quiet him down anymore.

"Located… in California! ARGH!" he threw the laptop across the room and crossed his arms.

Dib shot up like a bullet and watched in horror as his laptop smashed into scattered parts. He held down an angered scream and turned to Zim with a death glare. Zim just kept his arms crossed and stared straight ahead.

"You're paying for another one you idiot! I can't believe you threw my laptop! You have no sense of responsibility." Dib ran over and scooped up the parts in his arms as if were his children.

Zim waved a hand at him, "You're Earth device was useless to me. Zim has to go, bah-bye Dib." Zim jumped out of the window and took off back to his base.

Dib stuck his head out the window and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Yeah your better run! If you even think of coming back to me you better expect to be dissected!" He turned his head to his sister's window and saw she had a hammer in her hand. Without warning she chucked the hammer at his face and he shouted in pain, falling back into his room. He was pretty sure his nose was broken now. He lightly touched it and a shock of pain overcame him. He definitely broke it.

He sighed and climbed back into bed, he was too tired to deal with injuries. He figured he'd sleep it off.

Meanwhile at Zim's base he was down in his labs again, working on a new project. He was going to find that human and lure him over to his base. Once he made it there he would force him to answer his questions and threaten to laser him to dust if he refused. It seemed fool-proof. He was quite satisfied with the new device he had made and held it up to the dim lighting. It was a tracking device that worked by someone's voice. He opened up a window from the upstairs and set it free to search for Sandy Avarfeild. Before the night was over Zim's device came online and had now had an image of where Sandy was. He was typing somewhere. The background was very white and the computer had a blurry screen. Zim found it was shielded. While he was watching suddenly a proximity warning came up on the device screen.

"Eh?" Zim wondered and suddenly the screen started blacking out. Slowly but then frequently until he couldn't see a thing anymore. He slammed his head on his desk but lifted it when he heard a voice address him.

"Very smart, Zim. A spy bug. You are a very smart young man. I applaud you for your creation, but sadly I must destroy it now. Goodbye."

Zim's eyes widened, he knew it came from him. His paranoia rose to an all-time high and he began searching the room for cameras, or scanners, or anything that would give a hint as to how Sandy knew the spy bug came from Zim.

He couldn't find anything. He searched his own self and found nothing either. A pit in his spooch made him swallow a lump in his throat. He sat in his chair and pulled on his antennae in frustration. This Sandy human was toying with his mind now. He didn't appreciate the mind games he played with him and wished he could just destroy him now but without knowing where he was he would never get his hands on the man.

Defeated he shut down his computer and stalked over to the elevator, and rode his way up back to the main level. He sat on the couch and rehearsed the weekend in his mind. It was an eventful one compared to others. He had never encountered a problem like this before and hoped it would just blow over and be done with. But he knew for sure it would take a lot of plotting time to capture this human. He groaned at the thought of wasting his time to search for one measly speck in the universe. Zim reassured himself that as soon as he met the man face to face again he would destroy him where he stood. Then he began thinking of Dib and what he had done to the boy's device. He didn't feel guilty, no, not in the least. He was just wondering how he would figure out more of the Institution when his computer deemed everything classified. He would ask Dib what type of search engine he used later now; he needed to find that lazy, insane robot. If anyone needed to be in that building it was GIR. Half of the things he said concerned Zim of his true intelligence. He searched the kitchen and saw the robot cooking in a maid's outfit. Zim sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

"GIR._ What_ are you doing?" Zim asked the SIR unit.

GIR looked up at his Master and smiled, "Makin' a mudslide cake!"

Zim looked at his creation and saw that he had used real mud and formed it into the shape of a playground slide. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know what to do with you sometimes."

"You can help me make the cake!" GIR answered back.

"No, GIR. I meant- never mind. I'm going out, don't let anyone inside." Zim needed to clear his mind and the only place that wasn't cramped was outside so he had no choice. He closed the door behind him and started down his walkway and onto the sidewalk. Soon he had walked all the way to the city borders. A city full of lights and buildings stood before him and lit up his eyes with a purple tint. He saw everything in the normal magenta however. He had found out a while ago that humans could see all colors. He found it strange yet interesting. He never really took into account colors and eyesight. You were taught to forget about those things in the Academy. Forget about your body. The only thing you need is your mind, your PAK, and your skills. Everything else, disregard. Zim always ran those sayings over in his head whenever Dib had somehow injured him in one of his chases. Like this weekend. Getting hit by a car did hurt. It was a world of pain but then he ran that phrase over in his mind and got right back up. Irkens felt no pain, there were supposed to forget about all feelings. The only thing feeling you were allowed to keep was your bloodlust, invading wants, and love for the Tallest. Love wasn't the right word. Appreciate was better.

Zim sat down on the fence of the border and stared up at the sky, he used his eyes to locate Irk's star and found it way far north. He almost felt homesick for a second and felt his spirits drop until he remembered he was here on a mission for the Tallest. The Tallest would be telling him to stop messing around and keep his focus on the mission. But with this new human in the way, he'd have to put all that on hold and disappoint his leaders. He looked down to the ground, ashamed. He could never face them again without remembering what he did. He abandoned the mission for a stupid inhabitant. This wasn't entirely true. He didn't abandon his mission he just put it on hold. With that new thought in his mind he smirked proudly. He'd be right back to business afterwards.

He hopped off the fence but suddenly found himself under a white light. The wind above him was blowing so violently that he had to hold one hand on his wig to keep it from flying off. He looked up at the light in wonder. Two black-armored, shielded men jumped down and surrounded Zim on both sides. They clasped his hands in large cuffs that crawled up his arm and encased it in the white metal it seemed to be made of.

Zim struggled away from them, trying to break away.

"Get away from Zim! You've got the wrong human!" Zim shouted above the loud whirs of the helicopter up above.

The light disappeared and so did Zim and the men. The helicopter zoomed off in a rush. Knowing full well that they would get caught if they stuck around.

"We've got them, boss."

"Good. Take them to Sam. He'll be glad to have some new visitors."

If Zim were awake he would have heard the familiar voice but he was out cold, lying down on the ground in a small pool of his blood near his head. Dib was on the other side, slumped against a cargo box also bleeding from a cavity in his head. The two were going to be stuck together for longer than the other wished.


End file.
